The Thing in the Teapot
by The Black Doll
Summary: *REWRITTEN COMPLETELY* Catherine Morland is having a perfectly normal day trying to persuade Henry Tilney to propose to her. But some supernatural monsters want Catherine's brain. Jane Austen with sex, violence and a hint of H P Lovecraft.
1. Chapter 1: The Clearing

The Thing in the Teapot

Chapter 1 : The Clearing

Catherine Morland sat on the dead tree and thought to herself what a lucky girl she was. Mere days ago she was a nobody, an unknown in Bath with nobody to dance with or take the water with, and now, here she was sitting in a woodland dell in the countryside surrounding Bath, and not alone, but accompanied by the man of her dreams. Things, she thought, couldn't get much better than this. Well, of course, she continued, for she was an honest girl, she could actually be married to the man of her dreams, or discovering what the 'mysteries of the marital chamber' that her mother often hinted about actually were, for though it had been made clear that, whatever they were, they were hot stuff, unfortunately Catherine's mother hadn't seen fit to give any further information on the subject other than 'You'll find out soon enough when you're married.'

So, this wasn't the best time a girl could have, but, Catherine, continued her briefly interrupted train of thought, sitting here chatting with Henry Tilney was pretty good, and she was prepared to list it as one of the best things that could happen to her until the time came when she managed to persuade him to actually propose to her. But that, unfortunately, was not yet, so she stuck to discoursing on her favourite subject, other than Henry – gothic novels.

She was, as usual holding forth on the superiority of 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' to all other works of that genre, and while Henry made a brave effort to speak up in favour of 'The Castle of Otranto', she was having none of it, for as she put it,

'But Henry, all that the villain in Otranto does is to try to marry his not-quite daughter-in-law. I'll grant you, he's incestuous too, but that's not very exciting. Even the Greeks did incest. Look at Oedipus, he . . .'

'And how,' asked Henry, 'Does a nice, well-bred, girl like you know about Oedipus, may I ask?'

'Oh I threatened my brother until he promised to tell me of any particularly nasty or vicious stories that were missed out of "Classical Mythology for Young Ladies". Now, Oedipus . . .'

'And what did you threaten them with?'

'Well,' said Catherine conspiratorially, 'I saw what he was doing in the potting shed that day with Elizabeth Jenkins, and I was sure my parents would be angry if they found out, not to mention hers, and as I put it to him, as a good girl I had a duty to tell.' She smiled. 'He'd have promised anything. Anyway, Oedipus . . .'

'I feel,' said Henry, 'As a clergyman, I should be much concerned with the elasticity of your morals, and that you did not tell your parents of this shocking deed. It is not the deed of a moral soul.'

'Yes,' said Catherine, smiling in a surprisingly come-hither manner for so ostensibly innocent a girl, 'But it's very charming for a heroine to have a weakness isn't it? What I need is somebody to protect and guide me.'

And who knows, Henry might well have proposed there and then had not Catherine seen, or thought she saw, something moving in the woodland surrounding the clearing in which they were sitting. She shivered, and not because of the cold, because it wasn't. When they had settled on this place to have a nice coze (and maybe the odd propose if only Catherine could wind him up to the point of no return) it had seemed so charming to sit in a little woodland clearing. With something mysterious, unclear, but obviously very large moving in a manner filled with vague menace within those woods it no longer seemed so charming, instead it seemed culpably stupid. And so, just as Henry was struggling along the lines of,

'Miss Morland – Catherine, that is – I am – I mean – I would be most . . .' Catherine interrupted, inwardly cursing at the circumstances that forced her to nip in the bud what sounded like the best candidate for a quick 'Yes Henry, of course I do, now let's get married' yet, said,

'Hold that thought for a moment. There is something moving in the trees.'

'A squirrel, my dear. Oh, I should not have said that, though you are dear to . . .'

'Something large?'

'A badger then. Anyway, as I was saying, it would be a matter of great joy to me if . . .'

'Something very large?'

'Perhaps a stoat or weasel. I am not much interested in natural philosophy. What I am interested in is . . .'

'Something enor – aaaaaaargh!' Which scream was enough to persuade even Henry that his Catherine might have something on her mind other than the peregrinations of woodland mammals. Seeing her pointing frenetically at something behind him, and the frozen horror of her expression, he turned, expecting to see a cow escaped from its byre or something equally unthreatening.

Instead something large and pinkish, like a giant crab was making its way towards them from the woods. Even Henry, with his disdain for natural philosophy, knew that it was nothing of this world, for though he had heard vaguely of land crabs, he was pretty certain they inhabited faraway places in the Pacific, or somewhere like that, and not Somerset. And also that they were, well, small, whereas this was gigantic, rearing in front of them like, like, well like a giant crab. Which was all very well in foreign parts, but not here. But it was here, and it seemed to be making for them, which was not good news, given the size of those claws. It occurred to Henry that it might be a good idea to run away, but Catherine seemed rigid with fear, and he doubted his ability to run and carry her at the same time. What was he to do? He was vaguely aware that one was mean to slap people in the face when they had gone catatonic like this, but he didn't think he could bring himself to do that to his Catherine. Which left only one thing: a technique he had learned from his brother which was apparently (for he had never tried it himself, you will understand) guaranteed to get the attention of any female. But it was terribly embarrassing. And then again, what would be worse: to be eaten by a giant crab, to leave Catherine to be eaten by a giant crab, or to be embarrassed? After some thought he decided to go with being embarrassed, and so, glad that Catherine was so glassy-eyed that she could not see what he was doing, he reached down and pinched.

Catherine's reaction was not quite what he had expected, given that he had expected outrage, and not for her to sink into his arms and say,

'Oh Henry, so you do love me after all.'

'Yes my dear,' he admitted, 'But now is not the time for love. Let's get out of here.'

'You mean away from that thing?' she said, pointing at the giant crab thing.

'Yes!'

'But there's another one over there', she pointed in the direction Henry had been intending to run. 'And over there, and there and there and there. In fact,' she said, as one satisfied to be answering a tricky sum, 'They're all around us. What are we going to do, Henry?'

Henry could think of only one thing to do, and before my reader judges him, let us remember that he was a man of the cloth, and most definitely not a man of action. So it is regrettable, but not perhaps surprising, that his reaction was to say,

'I shall pray for deliverance.' Catherine looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

'You're going to what?'

'Pray. To God. For deliverance from these, whatever they are, things.'

'He's going to pray,' she said to herself in a rather overwrought kind of way, 'I fall madly in love and it's with a man who thinks the way to deal with a bunch of crab monsters is to pray at them. Well screw that,' she picked up a large piece of dead wood and hefted it as a weapon, 'What I say we need to do is – attack!' with which she rushed at the nearest crab monster and hit it hard with her improvised club.

The crab monster looked affronted, as well it might. The things from beyond the outer darkness were used to a somewhat more passive approach on the part of their prospective victims. In particular, they were used to young women having fits of the vapours, and therefore being among the easiest of humans to carry off for the purpose of having their brains extracted. It felt it was rather unfair that it, out of all the crab things currently infesting this god-forsaken planet, had to be the one to finally come across an example of that mythical beast the Amazon. Why wasn't this annoying young woman doing what she ought to, and what the man apparently was, and waiting passively for her hideous fate to overcome her? That, the monster thought, is the way things ought to be. And apart from that, the club hurt. Quite a lot. In fact, the crab thing thought that she had managed to damage one of its more delicate and precious tentacles. Well it wasn't having that, so it reared up on its hind legs with the intention of terrorising her into submission. Instead it suddenly felt a terrible stabbing pain in its underbelly – the damned woman must have run underneath it. Well that was enough. The crab thing took a unilateral decision that its people really didn't care about her brain all that much and lowered itself, hoping to crush her to a pulp. And instead came agonising pain as it felt itself impaled, the club, which she must have somehow fixed into the ground, pushing up into and through all its most vital organs. There was nothing else to do: the crab thing gave a final shudder and fell to the ground, dead.

Catherine allowed herself a moment to look on her work and feel smug, but that was one crab thing down, and who knew how many to go. However, she couldn't see any more coming up behind the one she had dispatched, so grabbing Henry, who was droning on about,

'And save those in peril on the sea while you're at it, I always feel sorry for them', she shouted,

'Forget the prayers. We've got to get out of here. Run!' and hot-footed it out of the clearing, leaving the crab things to gather round the corpse of their colleague and wonder at having finally found one who could outfight and outwit them. They had a brief conference and agreed that this was one brain that they must make their own.


	2. Chapter 2: The Bedroom

Chapter 2 – The Bedroom

Some little while later, Catherine and Henry arrived at the door of Mrs Allen's house, where they were to part. Henry was still overcome by their recent adventure, but wasn't sure how best to indicate that he wasn't certain he wanted his future wife to be the kind of person who, should there be a conflict between two of his parishioners, might resolve it by impaling one or both of them on a stick. Or a woman who might well take the judgement of Solomon in all literalness. And yet, he was very glad that he had been saved, for though his faith was strong, he had a creeping doubt that perhaps Catherine and her big stick were more effective than any amount of God-bothering could have been. Deciding to approach the subject gently, he said,

'But, Miss Morland, Catherine, where did you learn to fight like that?' Catherine tossed her head and said,

'You didn't have brothers did you?'

'Only the one, and he's bigger than me'

'And I bet,' she said, 'That Eleanor was happy to let you make hell as you wanted.'

'Miss Morland, such language. But we never, as you would have it "made hell"; our father, the General, would not permit it.'

'Well there you go,' said Catherine, 'I have brothers, and they needed to learn respect, and I had to learn how to make them show it or else . . .'

'Or else what?'

'Just or else,' she said balefully. 'Killing a crab thing is nothing in comparison, though it did leave me feeling strangely excited.'

'In what way?'

'Well, excited and aroused and with a strange tingling in parts that I really shouldn't mention to a gentleman.'

Henry was once again pondering the wisdom of joining himself with such a woman. A proper, womanly woman should have felt terror at seeing a crab thing coming for her, not killed it and then admitted to feeling tingling in her unmentionables. After all, he felt tingling in his unmentionables whenever he looked at Catherine, but he didn't mention it, and anyway he'd been led to believe that was all right. Tingling in the unmentionables at the sight of one's beloved good; tingling in the unmentionables at killing a crab thing bad, as it were. He was about to discourse on this when Catherine who, if he had been looking, he would have seen was undergoing some inner conflict, said,

'Oh, I cannot wait any longer.' She suddenly embraced him and said, with great heat and passion, 'Oh Henry I cannot allow us to separate until we have done a thing, for the next time those monsters appear I might not be there to protect you, and then I would be separated from the only man I ever loved or could love. So, come within and teach me the mysteries of the marital chamber.' Henry was dumbfounded,

'What did you say, Miss Morland?' Catherine blushed,

'I know I am being forward, but you may not live long enough to teach me in our actual marital chamber, and as I think it's only fair that I don't miss out on the experience, let's do it now instead.'

'But, but – but," Henry remarked coherently, not sure how to respond to this outrageous, though on the surface logical, request. He didn't like this harping on about how _he_ may die, but she did feel very, well, arousing, in his arms, and, well . . .

'Oh Henry, it is but a little thing I ask,' said Catherine, kissing him on the nose, both cheeks and the tip of the chin, 'But it would make me very happy, and if you're lucky you may enjoy it too,'

'But that's beside the point. Of course I'd enjoy it, I can think of no greater bliss than to . . . do that with you, but it's wrong!" said Henry. Catherine pouted and then kissed, him gently on the mouth,

'So was that wrong? And this? And this? And this?' with which she grabbed his head and stuck her tongue down his throat, leaving him feeling as if he were being attacked by a very friendly suction pump. She detached herself and did some heavy breathing, which did more than anything else to convince him that this couldn't be entirely a bad idea, and, taking him by the hand, said 'Come, let us to my room. It shall be our not-quite marital chamber, unless Mrs Allen comes upon us, in which case I'll just have to kill her too, I suppose.' And so overcome was Henry that he followed dumbly, unable to comment on this latest outbreak of murderousness.

A few minutes later, Catherine was having the time of her life. Why, if her mother had said it was this good, she'd have done it before, and often. Who cared about reputation when you could have this? But fortunately, she had her Henry, and he was moving on top of her in a most satisfactory way, or at least so she thought, and she would be quite happy to continue doing this with him again and again through years of happy horizontal married life. But wonderful though it was, she was sure it could be even better with practice, so she uttered what might be considered a running commentary so as to give Henry guidance:

'That's it, oh yes, oh yes, why did I wait, do that again, oh yes, oh yes, oh . . .' her eyes went wide, 'It's coming!' Henry, thinking she was referring to his efforts managed to get out,

'Well, try to hang on a bit. I'm not ready yet.'

'No, not that,' said Catherine, 'I mean it's coming . . . through the ceiling!'

In a flash, Henry was off her (which she found faintly disappointing – she felt that a true hero would continue to pleasure his beloved even while fighting off eldritch monsters) and cowering in a corner while fighting with his trousers. He, of course, was trying to ensure he was decent lest he should meet his maker, for no man of the cloth would want to go to God in a state of indecent exposure, plus he did, as it were, assume, given what had happened last time, that he would not have to do anything especially dangerous himself, being able to leave all that to his beloved. He admitted that it was somewhat humiliating for him, a male of the species, an example of all that was best about humanity, to have to play the role of the dumb blonde while his not-yet fiancée (though given what had just passed between them, perhaps it would be as well if he speeded up the whole proposing and getting married thing) did all the heavy lifting and monster fighting, but it was a role he was happy with, so he decided that little humiliation was a price worth paying.

Of course, Catherine knew nothing of this, and just saw her Henry being useless again. Which was no surprise, really. At least he was good at something, she thought, happily considering the last few minutes. But she was a woman of steel, so she put that behind her, screamed with rage and threw the chamber-pot at the large green tentacles that were protruding through the ceiling. Which had no effect other than, seemingly, to make them angry, judging from the way that their undulations increased dramatically. However, Catherine was not done yet. Leaping from the bed, she ran over to the fireplace, grabbed the poker, and then jumping back onto the bed started flailing at the tentacles with it. Unfortunately the ceiling was too high, so there was only one answer.

'Henry,' she said, 'Come over here and lift me up.'

'Uh?'

'Oh why did I have to fall in love with a dullard?' she said as she continued to bat at the just out-of-range tentacles. 'I want to you to come up here, take me round the waist and, no not that, lift me up so I can get at that – thing.' Well, that was asking Henry to think, and for Henry to think was to not act but to ask a supplementary question, i.e.

'Why don't we just run away?'

'Because, idiot, that might not just be in this room, and anyway, it might follow us. We've got to kill it, so come up here now, or, God help me, I'll take this poker and . . .'

'All right, all right,' he said, 'You've made your point.' Henry gingerly climbed onto the bed and, with some difficulty, as he was not a man much given to physical exertion, tussled with Catherine until she was sitting on his shoulders.

All this while the tentacles had not been waiting: in fact now as well as tentacles there was a toothed mouth protruding through the ceiling, and it was quite clear what it intended to do with it, given the way it kept on reaching out, trying to grab one of Catherine or Henry. And now Catherine was in reach, or so it thought. It reached out, only to receive a cry of,

'Take that,' and a burning pain in what had once been a much longer tentacle. 'You touch my hair-do and that's the last thing you'll do,' shouted Catherine, batting away tentacles with her poker, cutting at them until only stumps were left, waving rather sadly near the ceiling. The thing emitted a low groan, leading Catherine to shout, 'Ha, don't like that do you? Well take this,' with which she jumped and flung the poker, point first, into the mouth. The thing shuddered and then was still. While on the bed, the result of Catherine's leap was that Henry and Catherine lay in a heap. And then a voice came from the door, for Mrs Allen had heard the racket and come to investigate,

'Good afternoon Mr Tilney. Catherine, whatever are you doing?'

'Oh, just battling unthinkable horrors, Mrs Allen, nothing to bother yourself about: we won,' said Catherine. Mrs Allen looked a trifle puzzled by this, as unthinkable horrors were not something that she was often called on to contemplate, but Catherine seemed to be very certain that all was well, and for all she (Mrs Allen) knew, having your skirts hitched up around your waist might be a necessary precondition of battling unthinkable horrors. So she decided to just forget about the whole thing, and assume that Catherine knew for the best, saying,

'Well done, my dear, but do try to be less noisy about it next time. You woke Mr Allen from his nap,' with which she departed.

'So,' said Catherine, 'What we do now?' Henry was all for being public spirited:

'We should warn people that these monsters are at large.' Catherine drew a pattern on his chest with her finger.

'Yes, we could do that. Or,' she smiled as she straddled him, 'We could do it again, but this time with me on top.'


	3. Chapter 3: The General

Chapter 3 – The General

Once Catherine had finished having her wicked way of Henry, which took some while, it seemed natural to seek advice about the strange series of occurrences that had, as it were, flung them together. Both Catherine and Henry were agreed that Mr and Mrs Allen were not, perhaps, the best source for this advice, Mr Allen because he would be asleep and Mrs Allen because she had not a thought in her head. And that left General Tilney, Henry's father, as the closest thing to an authority figure either of them knew. So, once Catherine had repaired her dress so as to be decent, they set forth for the Tilneys lodgings.

Henry was inclined to be somewhat morose, indeed almost lachrymose, for as he said,

'What have I done? I have befouled, besmirched a young maiden, who trusted me with her honour.' Catherine was having none of this,

'Less of the befouling and besmirching. It was my idea, remember. And anyway, it was glorious. I want to do it again, with you of course, so either we need to find somewhere we can be private, or you need to marry me as soon as possible. Preferably the latter.'

'Marriage,' he cried in a faintly hysterical way, 'Yes it must come to that. Forced into matrimony by one lapse of judgement . . .'

'Hey, less of the "forced", Henry Tilney. You knew perfectly well that I was going to marry you at some point. We've just speeded things up a bit, given it some urgency, so you'll stop shilly-shallying and get on with the job of proposing to me. You could do it now if you like.'

'What?' He stared at her, 'Even after the foul things I did to you, you still want to?' Catherine sighed,

'They weren't foul, they were lovely. And yes I do want to. So, how about it?' Henry paused, confronted head-on by the prospect of matrimony. Yes, he loved Catherine, but he had been trying to put off thinking about the whole marrying her thing for as long as possible, in the hope of getting used to the idea gradually. But now she had forced the question, and he was busily yammering, when Catherine said, rather sourly, 'Oh look, we're here. I suppose we'd better put this discussion off for now and go and talk about eldritch horrors instead.' Henry, for whom matrimony was as eldritch a horror as any crab monster or betentacled thing, could not agree more.

They entered the lodgings and made their way to the Tilney drawing room, where they found the General and Henry's sister Eleanor. The General seemed strangely flaccid, as well as being missing most of his hair. And the top of his head. And, as Catherine verified by direct inspection, it seemed that whatever might once have been inside his head was not there any longer. Confirming that the bump she had heard on entering the room had been Henry fainting, she turned her attention to Eleanor, who was showing as little sign of life as her father, but who did, at least, appear to be intact, which was something.

Eleanor was sitting on her seat, a cup of tea held in one hand and a glazed look of astonishment on her face. Catherine soon verified that she was absolutely rigid, and appeared to be in a state of complete catatonia. Which fact, coupled with subtle clues gathered from her inspection of what now should be called the former General Tilney, suggested to Catherine that something eldritch had been afoot. There was clearly a lot of it about. Something must be done. But before going into full-blown Amazon mode, Catherine needed to know precisely what it was she was going to maim and kill, which meant she needed to talk to Eleanor. Taking the tea cup from her hand, for there was nothing worse for staining delicate muslins than cold tea, Catherine considered ways of rousing Eleanor – cold water, slaps and throwing her out of the window – before settling on the convenient device Henry had inadvertently taught her earlier. So, fearlessly, she reached down and pinched.

Eleanor jerked, squeaked and then, taking in the scene, screamed. Catherine decided that now was the time for other measures, and emptied a glass of lemonade in her face. Which stopped the screaming, replacing it with choking. Once Eleanor was able to speak, she gasped,

'Catherine, how did you get here? What have you been doing?' Well, Catherine had been doing many things, including fighting unearthly monsters, but one thing came to the forefront of her mind, and anyway, it was something that she would naturally discuss with her friend, for what are friends for if not for discussing one's most intimate secrets? Therefore, blushing and lowering her eyes, she said,

'Henry has been initiating me into the mysteries of the marital chamber.' Eleanor's eyes went round and she drew in breath. This was just what she needed to distract her from the harsh reality of a de-brained father.

'Oh my,' she said, 'Come, sit down and tell me: does this mean he's going to marry you after all?' for his tardiness in proposing had been a sore point between Catherine and Eleanor, Catherine attributing it to his finer feelings and Eleanor to cowardice. Catherine replied,

'I think so. He hasn't proposed yet, but he knows he's got to. After all, for all he knows I could be . . .' Eleanor put her hands to her mouth and sucked in breath:

'No, really? I didn't know you could tell so soon?'

'Well, I can't, but he doesn't know that, does he?' Eleanor let out a peal of laughter and said,

'Oh Catherine, sister, for now I can call you that, you are so cunning. But anyway, I want to know everything. What was it like? Did it hurt?'

'Oh no, it was heavenly. I just want to do it again and again. And you will too when you get the chance.'

'Yes, but that's the thing,' said Eleanor pouting, 'When will I get the chance? The General my father always scared off any nice young men I got to know. I need a man who isn't easily scared.'

'Well,' said Catherine in a considering way, 'There's two ways of looking at that. First, I could easily lend you my brother if you'd like a bit of initiating. He knows better than to disobey me. And second, judging from that,' pointing at the relics, 'The General isn't going to be a problem any more.'

'Ooh, I hadn't thought of that,' said Eleanor. 'Oh, I'm so glad he's dead. It's not as if I ever liked him very much. Come to think of it, he was a very cruel father, and now he's gone I can take a lover, or better yet, be like Miss Wilson and have lots of lovers. Oh this is going to be so much fun, Catherine. Are you sure you wouldn't rather set up with me as a courtesan instead of marrying Henry?' Catherine thought about this for a moment, then said,

'It's tempting, but I love him, useless though he is. Oh look,' she said, as she saw her subject beginning to stir, 'He's woken up. While we're discussing boring stuff, I don't suppose you can shed any light on the,' she pointed, 'Events?'

'Well,' said Eleanor, 'I was sitting here with my father, when the door burst open and this thing like a giant pink crab came into the room, and then I lost my senses until you brought me round again.'

This set Catherine to serious thought. So the pink crab things were not just out in the woods, but had made their way to the most fashionable parts of Bath. And apparently they collected brains, or at least, so she deduced from the evidence before her. But what could she do to stop them from de-braining half of Bath? Tell the watch? No girl of spirit would sink so low. No, she must find their lair, confront them and then force them to, if not re-brain the de-brained, at least promise to go away and not do it any more. Or if they had to do it, go and do it in foreign parts, where, or so her reading told her, anything might happen. So now she had to find their lair, or else set a trap, so she could lure them into revealing its location to her.

As she brooded, she noticed sitting on an occasional table a large metal cylinder attached to a number of unusual-looking metal devices by what looked like cables of metal. She went over to investigate and started to play with the cylinder, pressing a large button. To her surprise there was a loud click, and then one of the devices uttered a squawk, followed after a moment by a voice, which said,

'Where am I? Have they gone?'

'Who?' asked Catherine, intrigued at being addressed by a metal box.

'The fungi from Yuggoth, you know the big crabs.' Catherine nodded. The pieces were starting to fall together. She didn't know where Yuggoth was, but it sounded the sort of place that a villain would live in a Gothic Novel, so she assumed it was on the continent somewhere. And she rather thought a fungus was a kind of beetle. But she did know about the big crabs. In fact, as she remarked,

'Oh, I killed one of them a couple of hours ago.' The metal box managed to imply, even with such limited physiognomy that it had that it didn't believe her, but then something seemed to click, for it said,

'Then you must be the one.'

'The one what?'

'They collect brains to add to their library on Yuggoth. They have the best brains of many worlds there, and now they have started on this world. They are looking for one special brain. They thought I was that brain, and then they thought that it was this man here. They're not very bright, you see. Plus they tend to be a bit indiscriminate and collect more brains than they really want.'

'So what does this have to do with me?' said Catherine,

'What they want, I'm afraid, is you. Or rather, your brain. They must be stopped.'

'Well obviously, I mean without a brain I couldn't marry Henry, or do – that – again, or read novels. Not having a brain would be terrible.'

'Oh, you would have a brain. Just no body.'

'Well that's not on,' said Catherine with determination, 'I need a brain and a body if I'm to enjoy the mysteries of the marital chamber as often as I hope to. So how do I stop them?'

'I know where they have their base. If you take me there, we could destroy it and force them to leave this world for Yuggoth.' And at this point, Henry, who had finally regained full consciousness, interposed himself, asking, the relatively sensible question,

'Catherine, who are you talking to?'

'The man in this cylinder thing.'

'It's a bit small, isn't it?'

'But I am no longer a man,' said the cylinder, 'I am a disembodied brain who was once a man. Oh look, he's fainted.'

'Yes,' said Catherine, prodding Henry with her foot, 'He's good at that. But anyway, you tell me where they're based, and then we can stop them going round de-braining people.'

'Absolutely,' said the brain in the cylinder.

'Right then,' said Catherine, 'We'll just revive Mr Useful here, and then we'll be on our way. Do you want to come, Eleanor?'

'Oh no. I've got lots to do. Like buying some much more revealing gowns, like I always wanted to wear but my father wouldn't let me, and finding a kind gentleman who'll buy me dinner in return for some sweet, sweet loving. But thanks for asking.'


	4. Chapter 4: The PumpRoom

Chapter 4 – The Pump-Room

So, within mere minutes, Catherine was striding down the street, carrying a poker in one hand and General Tilney's hunting rifle in the other, followed by Henry, who was having to skip and run to keep up, especially while burdened by a large metal cylinder and a number of odd devices. Henry, it has to be said, was not happy. Having come round to hear his beloved sister discussing with his beloved not-quite-fiancee her plans for a life of what sounded like high-class prostitution was bad enough. That fact that his not-quite-fiancee had been, apparently, egging her on was slightly worse, as was the sight of what Eleanor had managed to do to her once demure dress with the aid of a few ribbons and a fruit knife. But then to be informed by that not-quite-fiancee that she intended to wage war on the pink crab things, that he was coming along as her assistant and ammunition-carrier, and that she was doing this on the advice of a talking metal cylinder which apparently contained a disembodied brain, well that was too much. In fact, he very nearly decided that the time had come for him to part ways with Catherine, and he might have even done so had not she, reading his mind, embraced him while hooking one leg around behind him, and said,

'But Henry, you know what binds us together. We can never part now,' in so sultry a tone that he began to feel all tingly again, and who knows how things might have gone had not Eleanor said,

'Oh are you going to do it again? Please do. I need as many tips as I can get, and watching you would be a fine education.'

'No Eleanor,' said Catherine, 'You will just have to become a fallen women out of your own enterprise. We have bigger things to do. Like destroying the crab monsters. Come Henry.'

And there they were, out on the streets, attracting more than a little attention. After all, wandering around carrying metal cylinders was an unusual enough activity for a well brought up young man in Bath. What the masters of etiquette would say if they could see a well brought up girl stalking the streets with a gun, Henry could hardly imagine. Well, he could: they would probably have a fit of the apoplexy, and he, for one, wouldn't blame them. Catherine looked distinctly frightening, for it was clear from her demeanour that she was not carrying the gun for show, and it was this that made Henry chary of remonstrating with her, for fear that she forgot her great love long enough to plug him one. Oh he was sure she would regret it afterwards, but as there was a good chance he would be dead that would cut little ice with him. And so he kept a low profile, folding up his collar in the hope that nobody would recognise him, though why somebody who was destined, or so it seemed, to be the brother of a grand courtesan, should worry about the damage to his reputation caused by being seen out in public with a young woman with a gun was not, perhaps fortunately, something that had yet occurred to him.

Catherine, on the other hand, was out for blood. She had had enough of these eldritch horrors. Of course, she had to admit that she had never really liked General Tilney, and that her friend Eleanor seemed much happier in her new role of good-time-girl than she had ever been as a dutiful daughter, but these things had now tried to get her twice, and if she was to believe her new friend in the cylinder (and why should she not?) they were still out to get her. So she was going to get them first. That seemed reasonable to her, and if the Dowager Duchess of Granbury did raise her lorgnette at the sight of Catherine on the war-path, she had lowered it pretty quickly when the rifle was pointed in her direction. So who cared? All that mattered was taking down these monsters once and for all. Oh yes, and marrying Henry. And just as she was trying to work out a plan for taking down the monsters once and for all, Henry plucked up the courage to ask a question:

'Er, Catherine?'

'Yes,' she snapped. He quailed, but continued, because he felt very strongly about this.

'Er, remind me again why we didn't just go to the watch and get them to handle this?'

'Do you really think,' said Catherine through gritted teeth, regretting that she should be in love with someone so hard of thinking, 'That if we turned up at the watch-house and said that Bath was under attack from giant pink crabs from France or Germany or somewhere like that, they would believe us?'

'Well, er . . .'

'The young lady is right,' said the canned brain, 'We can only involve the authorities once we have made this invasion so clear that even they will believe it. After all, if I were to tell you that fungi from Yuggoth wanted your girl-friend's brain, would you believe me?'

'Well no.'

'Exactly. You have seen them, and yet you scarcely believe. This is our fight and we must take it to them, before they come for us once again.'

'So,' said Catherine, 'Where is it we're going, again?'

'We must go to the cellars beneath the Pump-Room. That is where they have made their base, and where they store their collection of brains.'

'Well,' said Catherine, 'Getting there should be easy enough. It's just a matter of what we do next. Any ideas? Brain? Henry? No, I thought not. All up to me again. As usual. And you men call us the weaker sex. Just as well I've been reading all those Gothic Novels then. I know exactly what you do when creeping up on the villain. And it isn't having a fit of the vapours and waiting for the hero to save you. Right. Down these stairs I think.'

They stood before a door, behind which, if the brain was right, should be the headquarters of the Yuggoth crab things. Before going through, Catherine mustered her troops (which didn't take long, consisting as they did of one nervous young man holding a brain-in-a-can in his arms) and then revealed her deep strategic thinking.

'Henry, you're going to go in first.'

'What, me?' he protested, 'But what if they attack me, or do something nasty to me, or . . .'

'Oh don't be such a craven coward,' she said. 'I'll be covering you from behind; you'll be quite safe. What you do is this. You go in carrying the cylinder, attract their attention and say that you found it lying about and thought they must have lost it. Hopefully they'll be so intrigued that they won't notice me taking position.'

'Taking position?' he said nervously,

'Yes, to attack them, of course. So, do you understand?'

'Yes.'

'Ready?'

'No.'

'Right then, through the door you go.'

Henry popped through the door, more thanks to the hefty shove Catherine gave him than any volitional motion on his part. The room was dark, but as his eyes adjusted he saw a large space in front of him. Up above were the pipes that connected the water pump in the Pump-Room above to the ancient spring, and lying around the edges of the room were pieces of old, broken furniture and stacks of chairs. Henry cheered up: nothing unpleasant yet. And then he saw the shelves, each filled with rows of cylinders just like the one he was carrying. And, emerging from the darkness a large pinkish thing, making its way towards him. Then more than one, in fact there were more of them than he could, in his panicked condition, count. He knew what he was meant to do, but fear almost prevented him, that is until fear of what Catherine might do to him if he messed up her plan overcame fear even of the pink crab things, and he quavered,

'Terribly sorry to interrupt, but I've got something I think you may have dropped,' holding up the cylinder as if it were a chastity belt.

The leading crab thing stopped its advance, and then it spoke. It was not a voice so much as a strange vibration which, it was clear, did not come from anything so mundane as a mouth. It sounded, well, eldritch, and extremely disquieting, and once more it was only fear of Catherine that prevented Henry from crying 'Mummy' and running for it. Anyway, the crab thing spoke, and what it said was,

'And how did you know it was ours?'

'Well, don't you know,' said Henry, madly improvising, 'It's clearly unearthly magic that we humans cannot comprehend, so I thought to myself, who do I know who isn't human, and I realised it must be you.'

'And how did you know how to find us?'

'Er, that is to say, well . . .' Another crab thing spoke,

'Enough of this. He knows. We must take his brain before he tells anyone else.'

'I don't think that will be necessary,' said a menacing yet authoritative voice from behind Henry. 'It may not be a very good brain, but it's mine. So leave him alone and step back.' Catherine had made her move. Henry ducked.

The crab things seemed to be nonplussed. The first one said,

'Human woman, do you think you can stop us with a stick?'

'Watch me,' said Catherine and fired. There was a loud boom and the crab thing that had just spoken tottered and fell, dead. The other crab things started to talk rapidly to one another, along the lines of 'It is the one,' 'Dibs on her brain,' and other equally enchanting things.

Catherine reloaded the gun and, holding it at the ready, gradually made her way into the room, while the crab things backed off. Or at least, so it seemed. Henry, looking on from a distance could see that they were, in fact, forming a ring around Catherine, herding her to a part of the room where there was a raised platform with what looked like a cupola above it. And now it was clear that Catherine could see what was going on, for she shot one more crab thing then dropped the rifle and took up her poker, the weapon of choice for close fighting, for now the crab things were closing in on her. She whacked at those that got too close, forcing them to stay at least an arm's distance from her, but one had managed to join her on the platform, and it was clear that she was not going to be able to fight with it and keep the remaining monsters from taking her, though she fought heroically. As her frenzied eye cast over the room looking for anything that could be turned into a weapon, she spotted Henry standing behind the ring of crab things and called out,

'Well come on, you useless lump. Do something!" Henry objected to being called a useless lump, but as his beloved fought for her life, or at least for keeping her brain intact within her head, he admitted he had not been much help. Unable to think of anything he could do, he leaned on what he had taken for a pillar, only to discover that it was a lever, which bent under his weight. Machinery began to whirl and, slowly, the platform with Catherine and the crab thing began to rise from the floor. Which made things easier for Catherine, as now she had only one crab thing to deal with. But where was it going? It seemed that the mechanism Henry had inadvertently set off was for a band-stand or the like which could be raised into the Pump-Room, and indeed, with an almighty crash, the cupola broke through the ceiling and, with majestic slowness, Catherine and the crab thing entered the Pump-Room.

And things had been going so nicely. A string quartet was playing Mr Haydn's greatest hits and some hundred of Bath's finest were taking tea and making polite conversation, when a huge rending sound broke in on this civilised discourse, and a cupola emerged from the floor, pushing back tables and revealing to the horrified crème de la crème the spectacle of a young lady, whom some of them recognised as Catherine Morland, hitting a giant pink crab with a poker while shouting,

'Take that, you, you, you thing. And that, and that, and that. How dare you try to take my brain. Why if I weren't a well brought up girl, I'd . . . oh.' Which last bit was said when she realised that she now had an audience. It was hard to tell who was more disconcerted: Catherine or the crab thing. Probably the crab thing, for at least Catherine had some knowledge of polite society, indeed was an enthusiastic seeker after it, while the crab thing was equally dedicated to avoiding it. So it was that Catherine found herself roused from her embarrassment when the crab thing said,

'Mistress, protect me.' Catherine poked herself in the ear, unable to believe what she had just heard and said,

'Mistress?'

'Yes,' said the crab thing. 'We had come here from Yuggoth in search of the one who could command us and lead us to conquer the galaxy. It must be one who could conquer even us, and you have proved that you can do that. We had thought to take only your brain, but now you have exposed us, we must serve you as you are.' Catherine thought about this for a moment,

'So I get to tell you what to do, is that right?'

'Yes, mistress.' Catherine thought some more.

'Right then.' She shouted down through the hole in the floor, 'Hey you lot, down there, it's your mistress talking. Bring the man up here, and, may I add, it will go very hard with you if you've debrained him. And then I want you to go to the Abbey and find a priest. Conquest can wait. First of all, Henry and I are getting married.'


	5. Chapter 5: The Wedding

Chapter 5 – The Wedding

And so, in the Abbey, Catherine awaited her nuptials with considerable excitement. Never would she have thought, when she awoke today, that in the course of that day she would discover the mysteries of the marital chamber, marry her one true love and acquire an army of huge crab monsters who were slaves to her merest demand. How exciting it all was, she thought. How many other girls managed to achieve so many of their dreams with so little trouble? And, as she started to think about the mysteries of the marital chamber, and how very soon she could enact them, as it were, on demand (for what better cause had Henry for using his time than pleasuring his wife?) she began to feel all warm and excited. So, as nothing seemed to be happening to move her marriage forward, she thwacked the chief crab thing with her poker and said,

'Why aren't I married yet? Where's the priest? Where are the bridesmaids? And most important, where's Henry? He hasn't got cold feet has he?' she added, suspiciously. The crab thing, in as far as she could tell given its somewhat alien physiognomy, looked pained and buzzed,

'The human male you call Henry did try to escape when you announced your intention to spawn with him, but he was prevented from doing so. In fact, here he comes now.' And, indeed, there was Henry, dangling from one leg, which a crab thing was holding in its claw. Catherine relaxed,

'Oh yes, there you are my darling. Isn't it excited, us getting married so soon?' The crab thing dropped Henry, who collapsed on the floor and groaned. 'Well, isn't it?' repeated Catherine, with considerably more menace. Henry found his voice and said,

'Well, I know it was on the cards one day, but I hadn't intended to propose just yet, in fact I don't recall proposing at all; don't I usually get the opportunity to ask you before it happens?'

'But that's what makes it so exciting,' said Catherine, clapping her hands together. 'This way we don't have to wait for you to get your courage up, we can just get married, exercise our God-given right to the mysteries of the marital chamber as much as possible, and in between go forth on a crusade to conquer the entire world. That is right, isn't it,' she asked the crab thing, which replied,

'Yes mistress, if it is your will.' Catherine smiled and looked into the far distance:

'Oh it is,' she said, 'I always wanted to be a queen, but there were no vacancies. Now I can, and have you,' this to Henry, 'At my side and in my bed. Oh how glorious it is going to be.'

'Yes mistress,' said the crab thing, 'And may I say how pleased we are that you are taking this attitude.'

'It's a pleasure,' said Catherine. 'Now, why aren't I married yet?' Henry thought he saw a way out and said,

'But we can't be married, because we don't have a license. We need a license signed by the bishop before we can get married.' Catherine stared at him with contempt:

'You are talking,' she said, 'To the future Empress of Everything. What do I care for bishops? I will get married when and where I want to get married, and if one of my future subjects objects, well, we've got lots of empty brain cylinders waiting to be filled.' Henry quailed. What had happened to the innocent, rather naive girl he had fallen in love with? Not that he wasn't still in love with Catherine, and it had to be noted that she was dynamite in bed, but he was a bit uneasy about this new Empress of Everything persona, and wished she might show just a little of her old girlishness. Which fortunately she now did, for a voice cried,

'Darling!' and Eleanor was upon them, wearing a gown so revealing that it left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and followed by no fewer than three men. Catherine shrieked, dropped her poker and rushed to embrace Eleanor, saying,

'Oh Eleanor, how pleased I am to see you. How ever did you find out?'

'Well,' said Eleanor, 'I was busy pleasuring these gentlemen,' she pointed them out, in case Catherine hadn't noted them, 'When one of those big pink things came in through the door. At first I was terrified, in case it happened again just like before, but instead of taking my brain it delivered a wedding invitation. I could scarcely say no, could I? And I can always finish pleasuring these gentlemen afterwards.'

'That's very sensible of you, my dear,' said Catherine. 'So, would you like to be my bridesmaid?' Eleanor blushed and looked at the ground, where her foot drew patterns on the pavement. She said,

'Well, I'd love to, but you see, I'm not exactly a maid any more.' Catherine was impressed,

'Gosh. That was quick work. I didn't realise you were that serious about it.'

'Oh my dear, you can't imagine the repression of all those years of having to live up to the General's standards, when all I wanted was to go to parties, drink too much and find somebody to love for the night. It's such bliss being a loose woman.' Which she probably shouldn't have said, because though Henry hadn't understood much of the preceding dialogue, he did understand that and, taking a stance of remonstrance, he said,

'My sister, are you saying you have besmirched your honour, leaving yourself forever damaged and unable to achieve a good match?' Eleanor stuck out her tongue and said,

'No more than you did to your girl-friend, no offense of course,' this bit to Catherine. 'And anyway, I don't want a good match. I want a good time. There is a difference.'

'Yes, you shut up, Henry,' said Catherine, 'If Eleanor wants to be a courtesan then why shouldn't she? I'm sure she'll be very good at it. But anyway, back to the important stuff, that is to say, my wedding. If you can't be a bridesmaid, how about matron of honour?'

'My sister, dishonoured,' moaned Henry.

'That's true,' continued Catherine. 'Bother it. How about you just stand with me anyway and look decorative? Which you do in that gown, my dear, it really suits you. And then if I get cold feet, you can marry Henry.' This was too much for Henry, who had not previously considered that the naiveté he had bemoaned the loss of in Catherine, when coupled with an unhealthy dose of gothic romance, might lead her to not realise just how much of a faux pas it might be for an up and coming man of the cloth to marry his own sister. He turned bright red and, because he couldn't work out what to object to first, started to cluck like an ill-tempered hen.

'Oh now what's wrong?' said Catherine, impatient at her beloved's apparent unwillingness to enter into the spirit of things.

'I can't marry my sister,' he protested. Catherine went straight to the nub,

'But Oedipus married his mother, so obviously marrying your sister must be all right.' Henry could scarcely believe this, and couldn't think of anything to say but,

'And that was wrong!' but Catherine just replied,

'Well anyway, it won't be necessary, because nothing, not even the need to subjugate the world to my will, will stop me marrying you,' to prove which she stuck her tongue down his throat again, after which she, now breathing heavily and somewhat red in the face, said, 'Shall we go?' and set off for the altar, with Eleanor and the chief crab thing in tow. 'Now, we'll stand up here,' she said, 'You,' the crab thing, 'Can give me away, and you,' Eleanor, 'stand beside me as my bride's . . . woman. What are we doing about an audience?' The crab thing spoke up, saying,

'Mistress we have brought the populated brain cylinders up from our base. As you will see, we have set them out in the pews, where they can witness the ceremony and join in with the hymns.' Catherine clapped her hands and said,

'Oh what a lovely idea. Don't you think so, Eleanor? Why it means that even your father will get to see me get married.'

'Are you sure that's a good idea, my dear?'

'Oh I think so, surely at least some of our parents ought to be here to see how happy I am making Henry. Look at him,' she pointed to where Henry appeared to be having a choking fit, while a solicitous crab thing patted him on the back, 'He's really enjoying this, I can tell. Good. So what about the priest?' The Crab thing replied,

'One of us has gone to get a priest, and here, I think he is now.'

Indeed, another crab thing entered the Abbey carrying a priest by one leg held in its claw (clearly that was how they moved things about, reflected Catherine). It came up to Catherine and dropped him in front of her.

'Er, good afternoon, your reverence,' she said, 'Do you know why you're here? No. Right then, I'm marrying him,' she pointed at Henry, 'And you're doing the ceremony? I hope that's all right.' The priest stood up and said,

'Well, neglecting the fact that I am not used to being dragged from my lodgings by a giant pink crab, I have to ask, of course, whether you have a license?'

'There, I told you,' said Henry. Catherine smiled sweetly at the priest and said,

'Well, no, not as such. But I thought that, as it was me, you might just, well, marry us as a favour, don't you know?'

'No I don't know,' said the priest sternly, 'No license, no wedding.' Catherine smiled again, slightly less sweetly,

'But I'm sure I could make it worth your while. My friend here,' indicating Eleanor, 'Is just setting up as a professional courtesan, and I'm sure she'd love to have one of the higher clergy as a customer.'

'Oh yes, no doubt about it,' said Eleanor, 'It adds loads of class. Only the best for the men of the cloth, after all.'

The priest looked as if he might about to have an attack of apoplexy.

'You have the nerve,' he said, 'First to bring what I can clearly tell is a loose woman into my church, and then to try to bribe me, a man sworn to uphold the highest of moral standards, with offers of sharing in her moral turpitude. Be gone, harlot.'

'I'm not a harlot,' said Catherine, 'I've only made love with my fiancée. It's Eleanor here who's the harlot.' The priest turned bright scarlet, pointed at the door and shouted,

'Get thee hence, Jezebel.' At which Catherine decided the time had come to lose her temper. She could put up with a lot of things, but being called 'Jezebel' was a bit much when she had always done her best to be a good girl, and more or less obey her elders. So she turned to the crab thing that had brought the priest in, and which was still standing beside him, and said,

'In that case, kill him. We must have at least one priest in the cylinders.'

'What?' cried the priest as the crab thing whisked him off his feet to dangle, once more by one leg. 'Let's not get hasty here. Perhaps I was a little unfair. After all, it's only natural to want to get married in a hurry if you're in love, and I'll be only too pleased to carry out the ceremony if only this thing will put me down and you promise not to kill me.' Catherine smirked,

'I thought that would work. All right, put him down.' The crab thing dropped the priest, who pulled himself to his feet and, after a little heavy breathing during which he got control of himself again, said,

'So, you're the bride, and the groom is?' Catherine reached over and grabbed Henry, who had been trying to sneak away, in as far as one could when surrounded by crab things fanatically loyal to the woman away from whom one was trying to sneak, then said,

'Here.'

'So let's get started. Dearly beloved, we are gathered together . . .' and so it proceeded, unusually without a hitch up to the bit where the priest did the 'just cause of impediment' bit, at which a metallic voice spoke up from the serried ranks of brain cylinders, saying,

'Yes I object. I won't have my son marrying a nobody. Why she has no fortune, no family, nothing. I expect more for my son. He must marry into the nobility, he must . . .' Catherine and Eleanor looked at one another and both said,

'The General.' They walked across to the tube in question, accompanied, as always, by the chief crab thing. Catherine confronted the General and said,

'So what exactly is your objection to me?'

'You are a perfectly nice young girl,' said the General, 'But my son needs more than a nice young girl. Where is your fortune? Where are your connections? You have none.'

'I,' said Catherine, 'Am soon to be mistress of the world, and after that the entire Universe if I want to. Is that not true?'

'Yes Mistress, if so you wish it; we will be only too happy to oblige,' said the crab thing.

'And as mistress of the universe, if I want to marry your son, I will,' said Catherine. 'Is that clear?'

'Pshaw,' began the General, but then Eleanor interrupted and said,

'And Catherine has been so good for us. Look how much happier I am now, thanks to her.'

'What? Is that my daughter? You should be ashamed of yourself madam. What is a well brought-up young lady like you doing here, in public, dressed like a common whore?'

'I am not a common whore,' said Eleanor, clearly hurt. 'I have every intention of being a very expensive and exclusive whore. I believe the term is 'courtesan'. And I've made a very good start with these three gentlemen here, all of whom have expressed an interest in establishing long-term relationships. And who pay more for half an hour spent on my back than you ever gave me in pin money. So, basically, what I'm saying is up yours, father.'

The brain of General Tilney was clearly horrified, it said,

'Eleanor, I beseech you, nay, I command you to give up this nonsense and remember your place in society. As a courtesan, as you call it, you can never establish a good marriage,'

'But I can make a thousand pounds a go,' said Eleanor. Catherine was surprised by this, and asked,

'Do you really make that much?' Eleanor explained,

'Well, before, when he knew it was my first time, the gentleman offered me five pounds, but afterwards, after he had expressed his disbelief at it possibly being my first time, and I had proved to him that it was, he offered me a thousand and use of a house in Royal Crescent.' Catherine was duly impressed, saying,

'Well, if you can do that well on your first day . . .'

'I know,' said Eleanor, 'Isn't it wonderful, and isn't it terrible to think of all those years I wasted being good.' The General was not so impressed, or at least, not so positively impressed:

'My daughter, of whom I had such hopes for achieving a great alliance, corrupted forever, and all thanks to that nasty Morland girl. I never liked her; I shouldn't have let Henry . . .' Well, Catherine wasn't having this. She turned to the crab thing and said,

'Do you really need this brain? It sounds as if it's defective to me.' The crab thing thought, and replied,

'We usually like to keep all the brains, just in case, but if you wish it.'

'Oh I do. Eleanor, shall I?' Eleanor nodded, and as the General blustered,

'What are you doing? How dare you threaten me? Let me remind you who I am. I am General Til...'

'No,' said Catherine, 'You are a brain in a tin can, belonging to a bunch of giant crabs whom I, let me remind you, command. Now do you want to withdraw your objection, or shall I get the crabs to throw you away, ending once and for all your miserable pretence of a life?' Well, put like that there was no real option for the former General but to submit, and so they finished the wedding, somehow or other. The crab things clacked their claws in joy as Catherine flung herself at Henry and kissed him passionately, breaking off only to whisper in his ear,

'And now we have only one thing to do before conquering the world.'

'And what is that, my dear?'

'Well,' she coloured and looked at him from under her eye-lashes, 'I thought we might do _that_ again, to celebrate being man and wife. But if you don't want to . . . Ah, I see you do. So take me, Henry, my love.'


End file.
